The Blowing Rock, North Carolina, library’s card catalogue is intact.
Photo Above: The Blowing Rock Library is in many ways a museum of libraries past as well as a functioning library. © Blowing Rock Library.
The North Carolina town of Blowing Rock celebrates a special birthday this spring: the centennial of the Blowing Rock Community Library, with celebratory events beginning May 25 and continuing through the summer.
This beloved library, housed since 1948 in a handsome building of gray stone, has operated continuously for 100 years, all while remaining delightfully stuck in the past. That’s how the patrons and the volunteer staff like it, according to Anna Keber, the library manager and its only paid employee.
“We’re tech-phobic,” she laughs. “Nothing is digitized. No website, no e-books, no barcodes, no electronic gun beeping at checkout, no computers. It’s really like stepping back into the 1960s.
“There are generations that have never seen a card catalogue,” Keber continues. “We have people who bring their kids and grandkids in to see ours.”
Despite the low-tech approach, the Blowing Rock Community Library holds some 10,000 volumes for adults and another 3,000 to 4,000 titles for children.
While the library as an institution began in 1923, the current home reflects the riches of the mountains all around: locally milled knotty pine for the soaring interior walls, hand-wrought iron fixtures for doors and cabinets, and that stone … quarried long ago from the flanks of nearby Grandfather Mountain. When an annex was built in 1950 the builders were able to match the materials exactly.
According to one account, the library grew from the efforts of well-to-do summer residents of the town, which drew lowlanders for the cool air in the years before air conditioning. Funding these days comes primarily from the people who use and love the library. No federal or state funds are involved. There’s a perpetual book sale in the large community room in back (although the sign out front teases “Book Sale Today”), where visitors can browse a huge selection of gently used books, art prints, CDs and DVDs.
Even the whimsical bronze statue out front, called “Jessie” for a little girl portrayed as she reads a book, was a donation. Cast by artist Cantey T. Kelleher, the statue honors Blowing Rock’s legendary librarian, Grace Carr, and was donated by the Tomlinson family.
Blowing Rock Community Library welcomes visitors Monday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., May through mid-October; and during the same hours Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays in winter.
1022 Main Street; 828-295-7000.
The story above first appeared in our May / June 2023 issue.
